Murder in the Courthouse

by Nancy Grace

  Wait a minute. That was Cloud at the courthouse. Now she remembered his boots when he hurried off after she called out to him. Wonder what was up with him? She didn’t have long to wonder; the light turned green and Hailey hit the gas. Ardsley Park it was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Hailey checked the address again. Could this be right? The address she had was 7768 Victory. Driving by slowly, Hailey peered through her window.

  There had to be a full acre of front lawn, carefully manicured and boasting beds of azaleas, palmetto, and laurels, with a large, perfectly formed circular driveway leading onto the street. On both sides of the two street entrances were large stone mounts with eighteenth-century Versailles-type lanterns atop them.

  Beyond that rose the house. It was lovely. Judging from the street, it was likely a five-bedroom. Out of curiosity, Hailey ran a quick Google search on the address. Within seconds, an article popped up in the Savannah Seasons, a glossy, but boring, magazine catering to the doings of Savannah’s high society.

  Sadly, to get to the scoop on the antebellum behemoth she was spying on at that very minute from her rental car, Hailey had to scroll down through the magazine’s table of contents. Let’s see . . . “Distinguished Speaker Series with Georgia’s First Lady, Betty-Lou Talmadge” . . . “Heitzler Cellars Wine Dinner with Third-Generation Winemaker Hendrickson Heitzler”. . . oh dear . . . the implications. Hailey’s lips subconsciously pursed as she tried to scroll down with her right hand while still driving with her left. She finally pulled into a side street, Washington Avenue, and maneuvered to one side, putting the car in park, engine still running.

  Ugh. She was stuck in some sort of a dinner menu . . . Passed Canapés, Seared Sea Scallops, Prosciutto-Wrapped Trotters (what was a “trotter”?), Grass-Fed Beef Tenderloin, and Dark Chocolate Mousse with Crème Chiboust and Cassis Coulis.

  She was obviously dining in the wrong circles. Hailey smiled at the thought of suggesting this menu to Fincher. Staring at her screen, she saw each item was paired with a different wine, so obviously she was still stuck in the Heitzler Cellars Wine Dinner event. She kept scrolling.

  Let’s see . . . there were two full pages dedicated to honoring the life and legacy of world-famous golf course architect Bobby Trent Jones, a ladies golf session, and a golf greens aerification tutorial, as well as hydrostatic body fat testing, a book club discussion, and a dining article featuring something called a Pinot Palooza.

  What alternate universe were these people living in? Hailey let out a silent breath of laughter. On the other hand, Hailey thought to herself, if they spent a day in Hailey’s iPhone or emails, they’d probably think her world was nothing but wonky.

  Hailey had no idea how much of high society revolved around golf and wine. Maybe if they didn’t hit the bottle so much they’d have better golf scores. Whatever. In any event, she managed to locate the feature on Eunah Mabry’s family home.

  Hmmm . . . the article had a shot of the front of the home. There was no mistaking it . . . a large upper balcony was built into the front porch on the home’s second floor and situated between two white Doric columns. A quote from the article ran under the photo, “. . . a trophy house by grand architect Olaf Ottoman off Ardsley Park’s renowned Washington Avenue . . .”

  Well, that could only mean one thing. She looked up at the street sign to confirm. She was in fact on the “renowned Washington Avenue.” She shook her head and kept reading.

  “. . . a quiet location, the white-columned manse features a front foyer grand staircase, graceful double parlors, and a glass sunroom. Exquisite outdoor spaces showcase a formal garden with a ceramic fountain and covered gazebo.”

  Wow. That was it, all right. Taking a deep breath, Hailey U-turned the car in the middle of Washington Avenue, turned right onto Victory, and slowly pulled into the circular driveway that cut an elegant swath through the home’s front lawn. Hey, Hailey didn’t see a “no trespassing” sign, so why not? She repeated this phrase in her mind over and over in case the police were called.

  Parking directly in the front behind a silver Audi also parked at the front steps, she got out, closed the car door gently, and made her way up the steps. Hailey pressed the perfectly round doorbell. Through the door, she could hear the bell ringing inside.

  No movement. Hailey leaned to the side and peered through clear panes of glass surrounding the front door. Just to the right of the front door in the “entrance foyer” sat an intricately carved Royal Baroque table. Standing on two ornate scrolled legs, the piece was fraught with elaborate foliate scrollwork. It had an equally carved matching mirror over it. Hailey saw in its reflection that an identical table and mirror were positioned directly across the foyer.

  But what set the table closest to Hailey apart from its twin across the foyer was the empty wine glass sitting on it. Hailey could see the smear of burgundy still at the bottom of the clear cut glass and lipstick on the rim.

  Still no movement. Hailey rang the buzzer again. Nothing. Just then, Hailey caught a movement in one of the twin mirrors, but because they mirrored each other, she didn’t know from which side parlor it came.

  Eyes trained, Hailey kept watching . . . for what . . . she didn’t exactly know. Hailey watched in the mirror as a woman made her way, slowly, gingerly, across the parlor to Hailey’s left and toward the door.

  Steadying herself with the back of an elegant sofa, Eunah Mabry paused. Was she ill? Hailey quickly surmised she was likely not ill, but Hailey turning up on the front mat must have woken Mabry up. But the bedrooms, according to the article anyway, were upstairs. Did the woman spend the night on her sofa?

  Mabry finally entered the foyer and, glancing at the door, gave a weak smile that did not extend to her eyes. The clinking of locks being undone and then, the door swung open.

  “Good morning. May I help you?”

  “Good morning, Ms. Mabry. I don’t know if you remember me. My name is Hailey Dean.”

  Eunah Mabry gave a confused look as if trying to place Hailey in her own mind. She bent down to retrieve the morning paper off the front stoop and rising, paused. Eunah looked from the paper back to Hailey and then repeated the comparison.

  “Well, at first I must say I did not, but now, of course, seeing the morning paper, I do. How can I help you, Ms. Dean?” Her tone was more hollow than frosty, Hailey thought for a split second.

  This wasn’t exactly how Hailey wanted their introduction to go, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Since when did people get their newspapers on their doorsteps? Guess you had to pay extra for that.

  “Right. The paper.” Hailey gave the woman her best smile, under the circumstances, and with the words of the sheriff the day Elle died, lashing out at Eunah Mabry, ringing in her ears, Hailey searched for the right words to say. Stupidly, she hadn’t planned her intro.

  “Ms. Mabry . . .”

  The woman looked at her expectantly. This was the woman, according to one of the sheriffs anyway, that absolutely loathed Eleanor, eaten up by jealousy. Over what, though? The judge was a married man . . . had there ever been a relationship between any of them? Or was it all just courthouse gossip?

  Courthouse gossip that ended in murder?

  “I . . . uh . . . I see the judge is running for governor. I’m a lawyer by trade and I think a judge of his standing would be a real asset in the governor’s mansion.”

  Hailey didn’t know where that icebreaker came from . . . but if what the sheriff said was true, then this woman, Eunah Mabry, may go with Regard to the governor’s mansion.

  Or if not to the governor’s mansion full time . . . at least to an office within the governor’s mansion from nine to five weekdays. Or did she want more?

  “You’re interested in the judge’s campaign?”

  Surprise crossed Mabry’s face briefly and she opened the door a little wider, maybe just an inch or two. But even one inch emboldened Hailey, who immediately picked up on the slight, nonverbal cue.

&nb
sp; “Yes . . . yes I am. And I must say . . . you have a gorgeous home. Didn’t I see a shot of your home in a movie? Let me think . . . what was it? Um . . .”

  “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, probably. But then there was Forrest Gump, you know with Tom Hanks . . . that park bench was right here, you know. And Dolly Parton was even here for Something to Talk About. Or was it Julia Roberts? Yes, I got to meet them all. Let’s see, there have been so many . . .”

  “I thought I recognized it! Wasn’t Cape Fear shot here? And let’s see . . .” Hailey racked her brain to keep the conversation going. “. . . now that one was with . . . oh what’s his name?”

  “Well, of course the first Cape Fear had Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. I never liked Mitchum much, but Gregory Peck . . . now that’s a different thing. I wasn’t born yet for that one . . . but then the remake was made here too and there were scenes of the house in it too. Now, that one I remember. That one had De Niro and Nick Nolte.”

  “Oh, what’s he like?” The door widened another fraction of an inch.

  “Which one? Nolte or De Niro?”

  “You met them both?” Hailey inched closer to the door.

  “Yes, I did. I remember it like it was yesterday. And oh, it wasn’t me they were interested in . . . no . . . I didn’t fool myself. It was this house they wanted. But I got to meet them, you know, by hook or by crook as the saying goes.” Eunah Mabry glanced down at the Styrofoam cup Hailey still had in her hand. “Would you like some coffee?”

  Hailey didn’t dare mention she only drank tea. “I’d love some, frankly. Thank you!”

  She was in.

  Eunah shut the door firmly behind Hailey, jiggered two locks into place, and headed past the parlors and toward, Hailey presumed, the kitchen. Hailey followed along behind Eunah but paused passing the double parlors. “Wow. Your home is just as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. Did you do the decorating?”

  The interior of the old home was nothing Hailey would have ever picked out, much too stuffy, but it was a perfect fit in keeping with the traditional antebellum design. While the double parlors were symmetrically designed, their interiors were different yet compatible. Both were painted Confederate blue with wide, deeper blue crown moldings edged in white. The window treatments were darker blue velvet curtains trimmed in gold pulled away from the panes. Deep blue valances swagged down to form a semicircular top and white sheers hung across the panes, drawn against the morning sun. White Florentine columns stood at strategic points, the floors were highly polished hardwood, and the furniture matched the hardwood floors.

  Very impressive.

  Passing through a white wainscoted hallway, Hailey saw the walls were covered almost completely by framed family photos starting at about waist high up. They were photos from many varied years, but in nearly all of them, Eunah was pictured with her father. He looked familiar to Hailey.

  In several shots the two were on a boat together. Was that the Savannah River? At Eunah’s graduation, family portraits, Christmases. Hailey saw just one including a woman who was clearly Eunah’s mother. It was a picture of the three of them, Eunah with her mother and father. In this shot, her father was wearing a black robe.

  “Your dad was a judge?” Hailey paused to look at the photo. If Hailey was correct, they were standing in front of a portrait of Eunah’s father in the lobby of the Chatham County Courthouse.

  Eunah paused briefly, then kept walking. “Oh, yes. Daddy was one of the best judges to ever take the bench. Very famous, actually, if you run in those circles.”

  Hailey looked again at the picture. Now she understood why she seemed to recognize him. His portrait was hanging in the lobby of the courthouse. She’d been passing his face practically every morning since she got to Savannah.

  “That was when his courthouse portrait was unveiled. It’s absolutely stunning. Absolutely stunning,” Eunah Mabry tossed over her shoulder.

  Emerging from the hall, they made their way into a large kitchen. It was perfectly in order except the sink was full of soapy water and filled with dishes. Other than that, not a fork out of place or a crumb on a surface could be seen. African violets, notorious for demanding lots of attention, flowered in and around the kitchen window in several ceramic pots.

  “Your home is lovely. Did you design it?”

  “Me do this designing? Oh, no. I wish I could take credit, but my father built the home and designed the interior as well. He was amazing, my dad. The Honorable Willard Fulton Eugene Mabry. I’m named after him, you know. The Eugene part. They say he wanted a boy, but he got a girl, so it was Eunah instead of Eugene. He’s been gone years now, and I still miss him . . . every day.” Her voice cracked a little there at the end of her sentence, but given Hailey was following behind her, she couldn’t judge Eunah’s facial expression.

  Intuitively sensing it was not the right moment to shift the conversation to Eleanor Odom, Hailey replied, “He must have been an incredible person, to design all of this.”

  Eunah gave a shadow of a smile and threw Hailey a bone. “Please, sit down at the table.” Hailey pulled back a chair and sat.

  To her shock, sitting on the table, face up, of course, was the brand-new copy of Snoop straight off the press. The Savannah Morning News was bad enough, but now this? And there on the cover page, of all places, was a shot of her, Hailey. It was salaciously morbid, suggesting to the casual eye that Hailey was sprawled dead on the sidewalk. To Hailey’s shock, the banner said, “Avenging Angel Risks Death on Hunt for Brutal Killer!” It was an awful picture of Hailey . . . she actually did look dead.

  Inside, Hailey did a slow burn. She’d had dealings with Mike Walker before and she knew he was behind this. The man would do anything to sell his magazine.

  Hailey was convinced he’d trade his own mother with “Snoop” stamped on her forehead if it increased circulation. What a twist of fate that Walker’s in town covering the Julie Love Adams murder trial, lands smack in the middle of a courthouse crime wave, and manages to get a photo of Hailey after a brush with the front grill of a speeding bus. Another lucrative coincidence for Mike Walker.

  “You said my father must have been incredible. He was. He was, indeed.” Eunah Mabry’s voice snapped Hailey out of her mental tirade on Mike Walker and back to the here and now. She did, however, turn the cover of Snoop facedown and shove it under the stack of mail and magazines sitting on the kitchen table.

  “But to call him incredible is an understatement, really.” Eunah, her back still to Hailey, began making coffee. The very back of her hair was matted flat, revealing her scalp where she must have slept the night before. Unaware of her mussed hair, Eunah retrieved the milk from the fridge and set it on the kitchen counter beside another empty wine glass, again with dark red residue in the very bottom.

  “Now, back to Cape Fear. You know Martin Scorsese directed that. The judge is a big fan of his. I got him a meeting.”

  “With Scorsese?” Hailey’s eyes widened.

  “With Scorsese! The two had coffee right here at this very kitchen table. They certainly did.” Eunah’s free hand grazed the top of the old table lovingly, lost in the memory of the moment the three of them, Eunah, the judge, and Martin Scorsese, all gathered around her kitchen table.

  “Wow! I hope you got a photo!”

  “I did, actually. Would you like to see it?”

  Hailey didn’t know exactly what she was fishing for, but on more than one occasion, a whim . . . a hunch, so to speak, had steered her right during an investigation. Hailey didn’t know what, if anything, Martin Scorsese or this house or this woman had to do with the death of Elle Odom. Maybe nothing at all.

  “I’d love to!” Hailey answered brightly. She truly did want to see the shot of Scorsese with the judge and Eunah Mabry, but it wasn’t about Scorsese. Hailey wanted to see a photo of the judge with Eunah.

  She followed behind Eunah, trying not to stare at the bald spot on the back of her head from her bed pillow. Once
in the parlor, however, she realized it may not have been the pillow that caused the hair eyesore. There on an ornately carved sofa upholstered in deep blue velvet was a huge photo album of sorts, but stepping closer, Hailey saw it wasn’t full of photos.

  On each page was a carefully preserved wine label, a description and history of the wine itself, and the date and circumstances surrounding the uncorking. Without actually flipping through the open pages, Hailey judged there to be at least a hundred completed pages . . . so far.

  The room was strewn with scissors, tweezers, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and a third crystal glass smudged with red wine and lipstick. By the positioning of the pillows on the sofa and a throw blanket on the floor, it looked like Eunah Mabry spent the night right here, drinking and scrapbooking about her last bottle of wine.

  On the coffee table beside the wine glass was the photo to which Eunah referred. It was enlarged and framed in an elaborate sterling silver frame.

  There they were, Eunah, Scorsese, and Judge Bill Regard leaning in toward each other over coffee cups at the kitchen table, smiling. Regard was in the middle as opposed to the famed director. Eunah sat beside the judge, leaning in and almost touching cheek to cheek.

  The look on Eunah’s face in the photo was unmistakable. She was smiling all right, but not really looking at the camera. She was looking at the judge beside her, just inches from her own face. There was no mistaking it . . . it was the look of love.

  Clearly, Eunah Mabry was deeply in love with Bill Regard. Judge Bill Regard, possibly Governor Bill Regard, was, most important, a very married Bill Regard.

  “That’s a lovely picture. He must be a fine judge. I saw one of his campaign signs at a red light this morning.”

  “Oh, he is. I mean, he is a fine judge . . . and he is running for governor. Casting his pearls before swine, I say . . . pearls before the swine. That’s from the Bible.”